Last Bill Translation

[Jon Crow]

I seem to be having email problems too.  Apologies if you all get 
duplicates.

I agree with what a lot of people have said about Lost.  Judging from my
limited experience, it certainly captures the transitional world of the
business travel and the sort of disorientation that one feels from jetlag.
And I think that there was real chemistry between Murray and Johansson.  The
reason that feels real, I'm guessing, is that Coppola drew directly from her
experiences.  Where the film fails is tries to focus on Japan itself and
there she just got sloppy. (From what I remember, every single waitress in
the film wore a kimono) And as noted elsewhere, she drew back to stereotype
and smug condension.

One similarity between Kill Bill and Lost is that both depict Japan through
the filter of its own media.  Kill Bill obviously is a love letter to
Japanese B-films, but it seems to me that Coppola depicts Japan through the
filter of Japanese photography. Some of the most striking images of the film
(and there are many) echoes a lot of the photobook I've thumbed through in
the basement of Parco in Shibuya. The fact that Hiromix makes a cameo in the
film (she was one of Johansson's friends during the karaoke scene) only
hightens these suspicions.

Thoughts?

Jon

----------
>From: "drainer at mpinet.net" <drainer at mpinet.net>
>To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>Subject: Re: Last Bill Translation
>Date: Wed, Dec 24, 2003, 7:19 AM
>

>
>  That is the point I was trying to get across through my replies; too bad
> they didn't go through.
>
>  I agree with Arnold as well, and his views have to do with the whole
> "aesthetic coolness" of Japan (I think that explains the movie's popularity).
>
>  Which again brings up the question, is Japan the quirky place that makes
> it the story work?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Murphy <urj7 at nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu>
> Sent: Dec 24, 2003 3:25 AM
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Re: Last Bill Translation
>
> Well, this seems to reinforce earlier points that what Sophia Coppola
> has accurately captured is a particularly narcissistic tourist Japan,
> the Japan we all universally meet in first class hotels and taxis.
> Perhaps the truth of Coppola's film is that outside of a certain
> impoverished graduate student class, that's all there really is.
> Hence, Last Samurai.
> J. Murphy
>
>>We used to sit
>>around and talk about who would play us in the movie that they would make
>>about our time in Tokyo.  We didn't have a Scarlett Johansson per se, but we
>>did have a 22-year-old recent Ivy League graduate who was not quite sure yet
>>what she wanted to do with her life. I now fancy myself in Murray's role,
>>but so does every other straight male that I keep in touch with from the
>>case, I think -- which just lets you know how real it was.
>
> --
>
>
> Univ. of Florida
> Gainesville, FL 32601, USA
> <http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jmurphy>
>
>
>
>